


How To Be A Hero: Requirements Inside...

by MotelsandDiners



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Dean Winchester, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-13 07:31:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9112831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MotelsandDiners/pseuds/MotelsandDiners
Summary: He wasn't a hero. He wasn't fit for it. But...if you meet all the parameters, you can't exactly deny what you are.





	1. You Must Have Secrets

_“You aint seen nothing yet.”_

_A smirk, accompanied by determination and fearless eyes._

_I shook my head, I think I closed my eyes because gunshots startled them open._

_And I was alone._

_I was alive, because someone sacrificed themselves for me. I didn’t have the time to dwell on the guilt or try to appreciate that I was still breathing, if I didn’t get out, I was going to die._

_So, I crawled, crawled through the hole in the wall and down the hallway. Dragged myself to the laundry shoot, and glanced behind me._

_It was quiet, and no one stepped out into the hallway. No one showed up. Everyone was dead._

_I heaved myself down the shoot before I could join them._

I blinked, senses and sounds and life itself coming back to me. I must have acted strange because I could feel Sam staring at me from the passenger seat.

“What?” I asked, already sounding defensive about nothing.

“ _Me_ what?” he scoffed. “More like you. Have you heard anything I’ve said for the past 15 minutes?”

“Course I have.” I lied, knowing he didn’t buy a word of it. I glanced over, and regretted it. He was looking at me like someone had just ran over my dog. I knew the questions were coming.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothin’.” I snapped, hoping he’d drop it. Usually when either one of us was on one end of the spectrum: really pissed, or really depressed, we’d let the topic die. Well, I must not have sounded pissed enough, because he kept going.

“This whole week you’ve been spacing out, moping, and when you’re not doing that, you’re just an asshole for no reason,”

Well, Gee. Thanks, Sammy.

Might have said that, because I get treated to a bitchface. I didn’t say anything else, just glared through the windshield. Well, hey, he said I was being an asshole. I’d hate to disappoint him.

“What’s up? Because last week you were calm and sensible. You had a plan, and didn’t have a problem sticking to it,”

Yeah, that’s because it was last week and not this week. See the difference there?

“This week I’m impressed when you go out for breakfast and come back with coffee and donuts.” He said, his eyes burning holes into the side of my face.

“So, what’s going on? You can’t tell me it’s nothing.”

Actually, I could. I just about do, but instead I asked him a question.

“Sammy, did you ever wonder what I did those years you were in college?”

“You hunted with dad,” was his response, but the hidden question mark was there and I heard it. He did wonder, but he figured I just stayed glued to dad’s side, followed his lead.

I nodded absently, neither agreeing or disagreeing. Leaving it all open to interpretation. 

“That’s what's got you acting all weird?” He sounded incredulous. Probably thought I enjoyed being back-packed across the country, ordered around like a dumb soldier.

“So…are you going to tell me?”

I heaved a sigh, narrowed my eyes in exhaustion. There’s a rest stop up ahead, and that’s a good a place as any.

I glanced over, found him waiting expectantly, curious. Sure, he cares now. Not while I was out there. Could’ve died and he would’ve never known it. I almost did.

“…Yeah. Yeah, I’ll tell ‘ya.”

 


	2. Your Secrets Have to Have Layers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who was it, what was it that was haunting him? Where did the guilt come from, and why was it there? He wished he could tell Sam everything, but he couldn't. Not in one sitting. He needed time, time to work through it all. Maybe a new case would help?

I gave him some excuse about having to pee so I could get out of the car and away from his insistent staring. The bathroom was cleaner than some bars I’d been in, but I still refused to touch the walls or anything I didn’t have to. Knowing my luck, I’d walk away with some life-threatening disease, all for touching the wall of a bathroom stall.

I almost took the time to read all the graffiti, but I knew he’d be all pissy if I wasted too much time. No surprise, the hot water didn’t work. Some idiot took the knob clean off, because, who would want hot water to wash their hands with?

I couldn’t help the scowl on my face, it was the only other expression I was capable of making that week. There’s just something about looking in mirrors, maybe their purpose? In any case, I found myself reflecting on my past.

Thoughts, memories of that day crawled through miles of guilt and anger to get to the surface.

_It’s cold, almost unbearably so, and I find myself wishing I had brought another jacket with me. As it is though, I shiver in my t-shirt and watch Reed pick the lock of some colonial house._

_My car is a few blocks down, and I try not to think about how warm it still might be as the sound of metal clicking reaches my ears._

_I wanted to be the one to get the door open, but Reed insisted on doing it after I gave up my leather jacket._

_It swings open, and moonlight catches on the wood, revealing three-foot long scratches that were previously hidden by shadow and our perspective. Instinctively, I think werewolf, and almost grin. But I reign myself in when Reed looks back at me, amber eyes riddled with severity and quiet reservation._

_I shoulder past, side-stepping across the threshold, pistol in my hand and pointed at the floor. My flashlight I keep at hip level, and I click it on, wary of raising it until we can pull all of the curtains closed._

_Reed shuts the door, and moves further in, gun at eye-level, just in case. The curtains are yanked and tugged and pulled until everything is pitch-black and the flashlights are a real necessity._

_There’s blood on the floor, a copious amount of it. It’s right on the threshold of the kitchen, and there’s a trail leading away, further into the house. The blood smear travels down the hallway, along with mayhem._

_Pictures have been torn off walls, there are scratches in the drywall, broken glass on the floor, splintered wood from a ruined end table and the wall lamps have all been shattered or torn off their fixtures._

_Reed’s behind me, almost silent, the beam of the flashlight bounces around at the chaos we’re surrounded by._

_To be honest, I don’t know why we’re here, in this house. I already know what we’re dealing with. I don’t need to see blood puddles and broken lamps. But Reed had insisted on breaking in and canvasing the house, insisting that we were missing something._

_When I asked for a theory or an explanation, all I got was an apologetic shrug and imploring eyes. So here we were, investigating on a hunch._

_The trail of blood ends at a door at the end of a hall, though the amount has lessened. The victim had already lost so much blood…_

_I toe the door open, shine my flashlight on the wood and find more scratches on the wood at about eye-level. These ones at deeper, longer. More force was applied._

_I find the lock of the door near the foot of the bed, splinters of wood close by. “Looks like the vic locked the door, and the big bad wolf huffed and puffed his way in,” I say, not bothering to hide the quirking of my lips._

_Reed snorts at me, but nods all the same. “Why?”_

_“Why, what?” I ask, shining my flashlight on a rather large bloodstain in the carpet. This was where she died._

_“Why let her get to the bedroom?” Reed elaborates, throwing the beam down the hallway. “She had practically bled out, it wasn’t like she was capable of running a marathon. With her initial injuries, she could hardly walk.”_

_I shift on my feet, narrowing my eyes in thought. “I don’t know, maybe Wolfenstein was just playing with his food?” I suggest, and watch my theory tutter and die in mid-air._

_“No, something’s off,” Reed insists, and I sigh._

_“What’s your theory? Clearly you’ve got one or we wouldn’t be here,” I say, and Reed looks at me, the door of the bedroom and then down the hallway, amber eyes squinting in intense thought._

_“What?” I huff, aggravated._

“Dean?”

I jumped at the sound of my name, properly surprised. I found the reflection of my younger brother staring at me, those damn puppy-dog eyes locked on me.

“What?” I grumbled, turning the cold water off with a roll of my eyes.

“Nothing, it’s just,” he glanced around, shrugged. “You’ve been in here for ten minutes.”

Ten minutes, huh? Felt more like 2.

“I wasn’t aware it was a crime to take my time. You gonna fine me if I don’t throw my paper towel in the trash?” was my witty comeback, and it was apparently sharp, because he frowned so hard it was like his face was melting.

I left after that, with him on my heel. It was like I was being followed by a damn question mark, always at the end of everything I did, he was there like proper punctuation.

It was nice out, nice enough that I decided to take a seat on one of the metal tables under the awning of the building. My ass had hardly touched the metal before he was talking.

“So, what happened? What is it about this week?” he said, hands in his jacket pockets, his shoulders tight. That was his frustrated-impatient stance, I’d seen it a lot over the years, when him and dad butted heads.

“I worked a case,” I said, looking out past him towards the trees and hills. He was quiet, sure that I was about to give a detailed dissertation about the tragedy of this specific date. But I broke it down to a nutshell.

“Alone. I teamed up with another hunter, and they died,” I muttered, trying to work some apathy into my voice, anything but the anger and regret that was still so fresh after two years.

“I got them killed.” I snapped, and rose from the table. He wanted to say something, he just about did, but I edge past him and throw over my shoulder, “That’s all I’m going to say.”

And the quiet that followed was a promise for a future confrontation. Sam didn’t know how to let things go. It wasn’t in his nature, it wasn’t in mine either if I was being honest. But our dad was where we got that from. 20 years he spent on a revenge mission.

He was the king of not letting things go, and as much as I wanted the thing dead I couldn’t help but think that this was the last thing our mom would want for us.

“Let’s go hit the road and look for another case.” I called, not bothering to wait for his reply before I was ducking into the impala and turning the engine over.

Wendigos sucked, I wasn’t a fan of them. I hoped the next one would be something simple like a ghost. But when I had ever been that lucky?

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be longer and will take place in the third episode. It will basically follow the plot of the episode, though some things may be subject to slight adjustments. I'm not sure if one chapter will cover the entirety of the third episode or if I'm going to break it up, guess we'll see. Take it easy, loves, life is rough.   
> Also, I am aware that I changed verb tense. That will be explicit to flashbacks I decided, so if you could ignore that about the first chapter, I'd appreciate it. Because I do not feel like going back and fixing it. Yes, yes, I am lazy. Sue me.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how far into the Supernatural universe this is going to go. But it starts off back in season one, after the Wendigo case. I'm going to jump around in the time-line a lot, but only inside the season that I'm writing.   
> Bear with me, if you would be so kind.


End file.
